


the interruption you've been waiting for

by acollectionofdaydreams



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Canon Compliant, Eliot gets a quest, Fix-It, Grieving, eliot is sad, sort of i mean i ignored the dark king stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-28 21:20:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20432612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acollectionofdaydreams/pseuds/acollectionofdaydreams
Summary: One month after Quentin's death, Eliot is on a royal mission in Fillory and reflecting on his grief when he gets an unexpected but welcomed interruption by a questing creature.





	the interruption you've been waiting for

**Author's Note:**

> Idk what this is but it got into my brain and had to be written so here it is. It was going to be sadder but apparently I'm just not capable of that so another fix it fic it is. No one like Dies in this fic but I tagged it because Q is dead and some people just wanna avoid that, understandably.

Eliot was in the northern marshes of Fillory on some godforsaken diplomatic expedition to meet with the representative for the talking ravens. Or was it the turtles? Honestly, he hadn’t really been listening when Fen had given him the briefing. He’d just gone along with the quest of the day like he’d been doing for the last month or so since they’d come back home. He wasn’t stupid. He knew that she and Margo were trying to keep him busy. They’d been doing it since the moment they set foot on Fillorian soil. Delegation here, tax records there, and the list went on. It was like Margo thought if she drove him crazy with menial government tasks then he wouldn’t have any time left over to think about the thing they were all steadfastly not talking about. Which was, of course, Quentin.

Just thinking his name sent a dull ache through Eliot’s chest, right behind his ribs. It was why he’d been going along with all of their plans. Some days he almost believed them that if he just stayed busy enough then there wouldn’t be any part of himself left for that dark chasm inside of him to consume. He’d been running his whole life after all, so why stop now?

The only problem was that he knew better now. He’d ran to Fillory because New York was too painful. New York had Quentin’s jacket slung over a chair in the kitchen of Kady’s apartment. His unwashed coffee mug on his bedside table. Julia’s sad eyes every time he caught her out on the balcony smoking. Alice’s dazed grief. The whole city felt like it was drowning in their sadness. 

Fillory was no better though. If anything, it was ten times worse because everything about Fillory just screamed Quentin. Even the places he’d never been made Eliot think of how much he’d have loved it. His love for the place, though tainted by reality, had never truly dimmed because it wasn’t the place itself that Quentin loved. It was the idea of what it had meant to him when he’d needed it most. Quentin’s Fillory was bright and magical and full of adventure. Then there was Quentin and Eliot’s Fillory in some distant softened memory of the past. A Fillory that had been full of the mosaic, love, and family. None of those Fillory’s existed outside the windows of the royal carriage Eliot was seated in though. Just the monotonous blur of browning trees lining the rough gravel road he’d been riding down for hours.

He knew better than to think anything about his current situation was going to erase the memory of it all from his mind because his pain didn’t exist in some geographical place. He could run to the ends of the universe and it still wouldn’t be far enough because the pain was buried deep inside of him. It was so intrinsic that it touched every part of him because there wasn’t a single part of him that Quentin hadn’t touched. He’d taken root right in the very core of Eliot and seemed to have no plans to leave, so Eliot's entire self was aching for him now. It was the kind of all-encompassing heartbreak that time or distance could never mend. So, why run? He’d hit a wall on every single coping mechanism he’d ever known. So instead, he was just kind of existing and going where he was told. If it made Margo and Fen less worried about him, then he supposed that was something.

The carriage lurched forward as it came to a sudden stop, and Eliot had to throw out one hand to brace himself against the seat in front of him. He looked out the window again, paying closer attention this time to their surroundings. All he could see though was the dense forest for miles and miles. They definitely hadn’t arrived anywhere that could be deemed the site of a royal negotiation. 

“Uh guys, what’s going on?” he asked in the general direction of the guards who were escorting him.

A gruff man in the front said, “The horses have stopped, sir. We’re not sure why, but we’ll be on our way as soon as we can convince them to move again.”

Eliot rolled his eyes. Of course the horses had just decided they didn’t want to move anymore. That was just the kind of thing that happened in a world of talking animals with wills of their own. He’d barely pressed his head back against his seat and closed his eyes to wait out the horse drama when he heard a scuffle outside quickly followed by a rapping on his door. Unless the horses had learned to knock, he had a sneaking suspicion they had a larger problem at hand. He exhaled deeply before opening his eyes and turning his head towards the window.

He definitely wasn’t expecting to see what was almost certainly a half human, half dog creature staring back at him.

“Please tell me I’m hallucinating,” he said dryly.

In a very regal voice, the dog person thing said, “Eliot Waugh, please step forward.”

Not that that did anything to convince Eliot that he wasn’t hallucinating, but he sighed as he opened the carriage door and unfolded himself from the backseat. With everything else going on, this might as well happen too.

“Eliot Waugh, at your service,” he said tiredly, giving the creature a mock salute.

The dog thing gave him a shrewd look.

“I’m here to bestow upon you a great quest,” it said.

Ah, a questing creature. Of all things. The borderline hysterical laughter that bubbled out of his throat almost surprised Eliot. He briefly entertained the idea that he might be closer to a mental break than he’d previously imagined. The creature was still staring at him, entirely unsympathetic to his plight.

He said, “No offense, but I’m not really in a questing mood.”

The creature raised a curious eyebrow at him. It said, “I would think this would be of particular interest to you, as it concerns one Quentin Coldwater.”

Eliot couldn’t help it. The jolt of _shock/pain/longing_ that shot through him was involuntary and sent his wide eyed gaze right up to meet the smug stare of the questing creature.

“Wh-what?” he asked. 

Did the questing creatures not know that Quentin was…? He couldn’t finish the thought, still to this day. The word got caught somewhere in some part of his mind that was still holding onto the denial. He didn’t know if he was going to be able to cope with being the one to deliver this news if the creature was asking for him. Not when he couldn’t even think it himself. Fuck, he was going to kill Fen for sending him on this trip.

The creature carried on, unbothered by Eliot’s internal crisis, and said, “Quentin needs your help, and Fillory needs Quentin. Only you can walk the road that no one has walked before to lead him back into the light, Eliot. Go quickly.”

Then, as if this couldn’t be anymore like a grief induced fever dream, the creature pushed Eliot’s chest roughly until he fell over. Right onto the living room floor of Kady’s New York apartment.

“What the fuck,” he said.

A quick movement to his right alerted him to the fact that Julia was staring wide-eyed at him from the sofa.

“Eliot?” she asked. “What are you doing here?”

He pushed himself up off the floor until he was standing in front of her with a bewildered look that mirrored her own. Slowly, he said, “Uh, I think a talking dog just told me to go Orpheus and Eurydice Q out of hell?”

Not looking nearly as surprised as she should, Julia gave him a somewhat manic dimpled grin. She picked up an old weathered book in front of her.

“Good thing I just figured out how to get through the backdoor to the Underworld then,” she said.

For the first time in longer than he could recall, Eliot felt something akin to hope blossom in his chest. He grinned back at her.

“Alright, let’s do this,” he said.

**Author's Note:**

> Leave me a comment if you have any thoughts! <3


End file.
